How Rance VI Made Me Look into Otomege (Repost)
why is my first post for this newsletter this yabai
Kastel from the future here.
I’m reposting all my articles from Revue because 1) importing issues from there requires me to get approved by Twitter’s Revue 2) I don’t think Twitter is gonna be around for any longer to do this. I know this will be very annoying for existing users to receive the same copy, but I don’t have much of a choice if I want to archive my Revue posts on Substack.
I am sorry for the inconvenience for your email inbox since I’m sending l’ll be sending 11 emails at once. I just don’t have much of a choice here… (Update: I learned that I can disable this. Oh well, just letting people know that I’m archiving this at least.)
Hello everyone, this is my first time writing a newsletter. A few people may know me for my blog posts at Mimidoshima among other things and might be looking forward to more highly researched and analytical pieces. I will not be doing that because I honestly have a writer's block and I feel pretty bad writing after getting plagiarized and neglected.
At the moment, I'm trying to break out of my spiral by trying something more casual and unhinged -- hence the title, Minidoshima. It's more personal and perhaps weirder because I'd like it to be more in-tune with my actual way of speaking in places like Discord and not some mystical wise writing persona. If it feels unedited, it definitely is. I'm just kinda sick of writing polished pieces lmao. I do want to write something about what I've been checking out, just in a more relaxed way for me.
Hopefully, this newsletter thing works out for me and people who like to read my thoughts can have a better space than just the disorderly world of Twitter.
Down the Alice Rabbit Hole
A year ago, I went through the entire catalog of Alicesoft games that I was interested in. Not only did I play through their flagship titles but I also tried out smaller titles like Only You (a G Gundam meets Doukyuusei hybrid) and Atlach=Nacha (a yuri title about a hot spider oneesama). These titles have been lodged in my brain since and I'm grateful that I didn't just play through the obvious Alicesoft series that comes to people's mind.
But there was one game in particular that really resonated with me: Rance VI.
Written by Tori and planned by TADA, Rance VI is this insane expansion of the Rance setting. It focuses on the revolutionary and feudalistic politics of Zeth and the game tackles shit like class structure and slavery. Zeth is highly rigid: if you don't have magic, you basically suck as a human being and should get enslaved. That's what happened to our titular protagonist; he was separated from Sill, his actual slave, and he had to go to prison -- she on the other hand became a free citizen of Zeth. Rance being Rance, he found himself spearheading an initially pacifist revolutionary group to take down this feudalistic structure and irrevocably changing the politics forever.
You probably don't want Rance to become Bernie Sanders though. He's like the worst guy imaginable for this kind of stuff. Alas, that's what is being offered on the table -- and the game pursues this direction to its limits to see what would happen when some sword-and-sorcery manchild try to take down magic feudalism. The result: disaster and arguably the worst actions committed by Rance.
Tori and Sexual Scripts
Tori was handed the job for this to make this all work. She previously wrote the main scenario of Kichikuou Rance, so she's very familiar with Rance as a character.
In Kichikuou, Tori was very interested in fleshing out unsalvageable characters, especially women. These women tend to be horny and desire power, but they are vulnerable to their own sensual desires especially to exploitation. The men they fell in love with are all awful folks who are trying to squeeze every profit possible. These women might be aware they're being used, but at the moment they're fucking loving the sex. Short-term desires are more important to satisfy than long-term security.
This is the kind of thinking that Tori brings to the Rance VI table. Tori explores the women who encountered Rance, how they negotiated with "this force of nature" (as Uesugi Kenshin would put it in the sequel Sengoku Rance), and explored their own sexuality. One particularly famous instance is this rich ojousama who I can't remember the name of at the moment; she despises the non-magic-havers and is quite pompous. But when Rance finally captures her and performs BDSM acts on her, she started realizing she was enjoying it. At first, she was afraid of this masochistic pleasure brewing but as the game (and later, the series) went on, she embraces this. She wants this kind of sex -- this is what's missing in her life.
Rance gets explored in this manner as well. There's a character named Tamanegi who captures girl monsters and "chronicles" his sexual torture with them as like part of his scientific/spiritual journey or something. When Rance got ahold of a woman and asked Tamanegi to do his magic, he got a bit freaked out that Tamanegi was gonna do some hardcore stuff and stopped it immediately. A disappointed Tamanegi would later comment to the girl, "You're lucky Rance is a nice guy."
That sex scene really fascinated me when I first read it. I was very deep into the worldbuilding in the Rance and Toushin Toshi games already, so I thought how to make sense of that scene. There's no doubt in our earthly moral system that Rance is a terrible human being who would be imprisoned immediately; however, he's a "nice guy" because the world's already so full to the brim with Tamanegis and more.
And Rance himself has limits: he likes banging girls, but he doesn't want to actually hurt them for sexual pleasure. If anything, he's just unfamiliar with the concept of consent -- at least the way we earthly humans understand it.
I recently learned of this concept called sexual scripts, which outline the rules and conventions of how we approach sex. These "scripts" change depending on the context. What's permissible in BDSM is not likely to be okay in normal vanilla sex, not without clarifying the boundaries anyway. And Rance VI and fiction that explores different sexual scripts utterly fascinate me. These works have their own "moral compasses", their own "languages" and "discourses" in talking about gender and sexuality, and everything in between. Because they're alien to our western/global northern understandings of sexual scripts, these creators are able to look into what's usually considered taboo or just discouraged.
(Gotta shout out Saori/@gayanimegirl for bringing this up in the context of Omegaverse content. I also learned that Omegaverse yuri content was actually a thing... Woah...)
Tori is able to pull this off all because I think she, as a woman, understands what is desirable and pleasurable for a woman in these kinds of sexual scripts. She thinks about what turns people on: it's not the act of penetrative sex but the context -- the sexual script -- of the action. Sometimes, that goes into actual yabai territories. But that's what makes it more risky, more interesting, and just more memorable. The fact Rance's actions were never justified makes it better. I was so enamored by Tori's writing because of this and I ended up stanning women in eroge even more.
These thoughts about the different conceptions of The Sex were swimming in my mind. I was already interested in looking into eroge and visual novels in general that were made by women, but I felt like what I loved about Rance VI might appear more often in josei-muke media.
Preliminary Thoughts on the Two 18+ Otomege I Played So Far
That's pretty much why I decided to take on otomege all of a sudden. I know my sudden move might surprise people, but since I had like no actual backlog to comb through and I wanted to see how women deal with erotic settings, I've dipped my toes into this pretty cool world. Everything is novel and intriguing to me. It brings back good memories of when I started learning Japanese: this world is huge and expansive, I wonder if I'll ever be able to grasp even the basics.
But as I started tweeting about the two recent otomege (Chou no Doku and Yoshiwara Higanbana) I've finished, I did get a tinge of guilt over the possible misunderstanding that I might know more than I've let on. That's one of the reasons why I wrote this article: to be as transparent as possible since I've no clue what to expect from this world of otomege.
I do have some basic observations on the otomege I've played and read about and this also comes from conversations with people like curry about these titles. Don't expect some deep insights or anything, they're just patterns I've noticed from reading a lot of danseimuke eroge. If anything, this shows how extremely ignorant I was about this genre and the need to learn more about this world.
1) They're Actual 18+ Titles
I thought about was how these 18+ otomege titles tend to remain faithful to these sexual fantasy scenarios, even if they have PLOT written all over it. These games never forget they're porn games first and foremost.
For people not attuned to visual novel shenanigans and therefore unsure why this is something worth pointing out, the danseimuke world tends to be kinda whatever with ero if it isn't a nukige. The games I usually play are more focused on grand scenarios with galaxy brain literary themes; the erotic scenes only exist in order to give the game a chance at selling. Unless they're Clannad or selling on consoles, all-ages "pure" visual novel titles don't really gain much attention -- you can verify this by checking DLSite. Sex really does sell, even if it's tangential and pointless.
These otomege however is faithful to their adult media nature. They talk about sex, the power dynamics/sexual scripts, and how hot shit can be. Sexual fantasies are intrinsically linked to the plots. Even if the game has a big brain grand/true route, it's always in the realm of sexual fantasies.
You could do some incest, hang out with someone who's appeared on Twitter gimmick accounts about guys taking the L, or have a really weird but poignant relationship with someone way older. These relationships may tie into overarching themes, but they remain fantasies that the player can immerse themselves in.
One could say that the scenarios are a long build-up excuse to some hot steamy sex. This lazer focused precision is what makes 18+ otomege work for me so far: it doesn't try to expand into bombastic shit, it knows what it wants, and there's gonna be a lot of peepee into the weewee.
2) They Could Have Classic Route Structures
Because I was an ignoramus, I had the impression that otomege would be closer to dating sims: just date some hot guy and that's all you need to do. I'm sure there's titles that are like that, but I've been sinking my teeth into games that honestly resemble the visual novels I play.
These titles may sometimes have a true/grand route that require the player to at least read some routes first. This means the player will have to be very involved and familiar with the setting. You're not supposed to drop the title after reading one route and being satisfied with it; there's mysteries and foreshadowing to untangle!
It's silly, but in this regard especially I was very amused by the similarities of otomege and dansei-muke eroge. I didn't expect to be wrapped up in the overall plots of these titles because -- especially from discussions with fellow visual novel developers who do read otomege -- I thought it would all be standalone routes that could be "canonical" in their own way. But nah, there can be true routes to overcome for good ol' catharsis!
So far, I like what otomege's doing to the route structures more than dansei-muke stuff. Perhaps, it's a "grass is greener" deal, but I think the games having bad ends make these stale structure worthwhile. My issue with the classic heroine/grand route structure is that there's rarely any reason for these heroines to have diverging routes; they just pad the game for no good reason (ahem, Baldr Heart but that's due to GIGA forcing Hiei to structure it like that). With multiple messed up bad ends, the route structure doesn't wear out its welcome.
I did lose patience reading Yoshiwara Higanbana, but I attribute that to the game just having a million choices. Why are there so many random choices to pick, even after you entered a route? I hate "gameplay" like that in visual novels, man. Just do what Hentai Prison does: you choose the route from a select screen and then click on the good or bad end choices. Let me read forever without typing in KOURYAKU on Google, man!!!
3) The Bad Ends Don't Come Out of Nowhere; They're Part of the Dudes' Psyche
In another instance of my ignorance, I had this assumption that the bad ends were added because who doesn't love the Problematic Media stuff. Again, I'm sure that happens too. But the reality is always more nuanced: they're just another version of the same guy you're trying to date.
What I mean is that no matter what end you're aiming for, you're still dating the same guy. You're just manifesting something that's already within the guys you wanna date. Good or bad end, you're still seeing the same guy. If your guy goes yandere for you, he isn't breaking character; he is still the same guy, but you may have pushed him too far to make him do some terrible stuff.
This leads to some interesting possibilities with the sexual script stuff I've mentioned above. The same guy can be a "medium" of sorts where different types of sexual encounters can be explored with. He could be someone rough, vulnerable, or actually nice. It just depends on the end you go for. Because he's a modicum of sexual possibilities, you also can see him as manifesting different kinds of personalities -- quite similar to how some plural systems may talk about themselves. You the player may also don different masks in the new sexual scenario you're in. No matter how many times I've seen it, seeing my otherwise passive protagonist go on top and becoming femdom or craving to be tortured by their loved ones activates my cursed brain.
I can imagine how this kind of writing allows people to explore touchy subjects while maintaining a safe distance. This does lead to misunderstandings about the sexualization of (queer) guys and the stereotyping of fujoshi as depraved "cat ladies", but I do think the pros outweigh the cons. The play present in these scenes is really wonderful and I would daresay literary. Lots of interesting literature like Robert Coover's Spanking the Maid, the works of Marquis de Sade, and queer literature in general explore how we encounter sex. Honestly, yuri stuff like YagaKimi does this too -- just in a more all-ages way. We just don't think that because there's JUST NOT MUCH SEX.
Conclusion
I've been writing this damn thing in a room that smells of mosquito spray, so I don't have anything deep to say for a conclusion. This post is too long anyway as a first post where I just ramble about things I like and pretend to say something meaningful. Would anyone actually read this to the end, lmao?
I would know if people actually say "wtf is this conclusion", I guess...
If you like this post and will like to see more ramblings like this, please let me know. If not and you somehow read the whole thing, go watch Ordinary Sausage instead. They make really good sausages. I really want to cook spaghetti in Coke Zero someday.